1950 Ford Coupe Once Forgotten To Be Restored

Ron Dunn’s 1950 Ford has a ton of history. The car debuted at the L.A. Motorama in 1952 where it took home First in Class and also First Place in the Custom Coupe class over at the Oakland Roadster Show in 1953. The car has been featured in multiple publications, even being crowned custom of the year in 1953 by Hop Up magazine.

Steve Frisbie, owner of Steve’s Auto Restoration, has decided to take on the project of restoring Dunn’s 1950 Ford. He rescued the car from an open air storage unit in Burbank, California in 2005. When Frisbie brought the car up to Portland, Oregon, he put it in storage with plans to restore it, but in the case of many shop owners, he had to put the project on hold and take care of customer cars first. Now the time has finally come for Frisbie to start working on his project.

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Originally customized in 1951, the car underwent some surgery after a sideswiping accident in the late ‘50s. As a result the car had to be re-customized and Valley Custom Speed Shop was chosen to do the job. There is controversy on whether the first version was better than the second and Frisbie felt that it would be sacrilegious to destroy the body work that Valley Speed Shop had done. Rather than try and re-create the first version of the car before the accident, he has decided to re-customize the second version.

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“Our plan at this point is to restore the car to the second version since that is what we have and all the pieces are there. Although many people have argued that the first version was a more elegant representation of early custom styling, we feel it would be wrong to remove all of the metal work that is Valley Custom Shop only to replace it with our own work. So the decision was made to restore the second version and during the process we will photograph and document items such as all the section cut lines in hopes to one day clone the first version. All of the information gathered during this restoration will give us the perfect reference to accurately clone the first version,” said Chris Clark from Steve’s Auto Restorations.

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In order to successfully reproduce the car, there is still information that Frisbie is trying to collect. Among the items is a detailed photo of the interior, engine compartment and trunk, photos of the car after the wreck, possible snapshots of Dunn at Valley Custom Speed Shop, Trophies or Awards, and any in process photos of the first and second version. Currently the car has a 226 Flathead six-cylinder engine backed by a stock three-speed. The suspension has been modified in the front with Valley Custom Speed Shop control arms and lowering blocks in the rear.

We look forward to the progress of this car and you can follow the whole process on their Facebook HERE or at www.stevesautorestoration.com so keep your eyes peeled.